Play it Forward: Top 10 sports events July 7-13 you won’t want to miss

Argentina's Sergio Aguero runs with the ball during a training session in Vespesiano, near Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Sunday, July 6, 2014. Argentina will face Netherlands on their semifinal match of the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament on July 9 in Sao Paulo.(AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

NO. 1: FIFA WORLD CUP:

Final: At Rio De Janeiro, noon Sunday, Ch. 7

What kind of heck is going to break loose if host country Brazil meets up with rival Argentina in an all-South American final for Match 64 of this month-long carnival ride? They’ve faced each other more than 100 times since squaring off for the first time 100 years ago. Argentina hasn’t been to the Final Four since 1990, when Diego Maradona was the big kicker wearing No. 10. Brazil, with Pele’s presence in its midst, is nearly assumed to make it all the way to the final. “Argentina and Brazil consider each other as the cream of South American football and that fuels huge sporting rivalry,” Raul Bernal-Mezza, professor of international relations at Buenos Aires University, told the Malay Mail, Malaysia’s English-language media organization. “All Argentinians want Brazil to lose and all Brazilians want Argentina to lose.” The two soccer giants may have seven World Cup titles between them — Brazil won it in 1958, ’62, ’70, ’94 and 2002, while Argentina has ’78 and ’86 — but they’ve never reached the semifinals in the same World Cup before this. “To win the final with Brazil at the Maracanã is something like the ultimate dream for any Argentine fan,” said Ezequiel Fernández Moores, one of Argentina’s best-known sportswriters, in an interview with the Washington Post. “It would trump all World Cups and be an eternal postcard image.” Added Newton César de Oliveira Santos, author of the 2009 book “Brazil-Argentina: Stories of the World’s Greatest Football Rivalry,” when asked by the Post: “The Argentines would love to play football as fancy as the Brazilians, and the Brazilians would love to play with the drive and will that the Argentines have. The rivalry exists, but it hides a big admiration that each has of the other.”

NO. 2: MLB: DODGERS vs. SAN DIEGO

Details/TV: Dodger Stadium, Thursday-Sunday, SportsNet L.A.:

It’s 36 innings down, 24 to go. “It’s great,” Clayton Kershaw said after his last start consisted of eight shutout innings in Colorado on the Fourth of July. “You never want to give up a run, so I guess that’s the goal.” The goal now for Dodgers fans is trying to follow Kershaw’s pursuit of Orel Hershiser’s record 59 scoreless innings set more than 25 years ago without much help from the TV end of things. As the Dodgers end a six-game road trip, Kershaw draws the Padres in the first of this four-game series, trying to win his eighth start in a row going into the All-Star break. He’s seen his record balloon to 10-2, his ERA drop from 3.57 to 1.85 over the last seven starts and his strikeout-to-walk ratio sit at 115-12 over 87 1/3 innings. As the series continues, the Dodgers have an unusual giveaway Saturday — a bobblehead re-creation of Pee Wee Reese pushing Roy Campanella in his wheelchair during a night in his honor at the Coliseum in 1959. It’s sponsored by United Health Care. Can’t be sure a wheelchair has ever been incorporated into a baseball-related bobblehead of this sort.

The series: 7:10 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 1:10 p.m. Sunday.

NO. 3: MLB: DODGERS at DETROIT

Details/TV: Tuesday and Wednesday, SportsNet L.A.

When Brad Ausmus ended his 18-year playing career with the Dodgers in 2010, there were some who thought he’d be a better candidate than Don Mattingly to succeed Joe Torre as the Dodgers manager starting with the 2011 season. That didn’t happen. Ausmus, three years after working in the Padres’ front office, was hired to manage the Tigers before this season, succeeding Jim Leyland. Ausmus has Detroit atop the AL Central, even with Justin Verlander not in top form (7-7, 4.71 ERA) and reigning AL Cy Young winner Max Scherzer (10-3, 3.47 ERA) taking some time to return to form. Verlander and Scherzer get the pitching assignment for this kinda split doubleheader — it’s two games played in about a 20-hour window — against a Dodger team that might be able to still use Ausmus as a backup catcher for A.J. Ellis.

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The series:

4 p.m. Tuesday, 10 a.m. Wednesday.

NO. 4: MLB: ANGELS at TEXAS

Details/TV: Thursday-Sunday, FSW, Fox

The Angels have already won four of six against the Rangers this season, all of them in Anaheim, leading into this four-game series. How Texas has managed to sink to fourth in the AL West can be best summed up in its pitching statistics: 29th in the MLB in ERA (4.64) and dead-last in quality starts (29), WHIP (1.48) and batting average against (.280).

NO. 7: MLS: GALAXY vs. REAL SALT LAKE

Just hours after the World Cup final ends, the Galaxy is hosting a Brazilian Heritage Night with live music and samba dancing starting about two hours before. And perhaps never ending.

NO. 8: HORSE RACING:

LOS ALAMITOS SUMMER THOROUGHBRED FESTIVAL CLOSING DAY

Details/TV: 2 p.m. Sunday.

The first test for how thoroughbred racing will work at the Orange County track otherwise catering to quarter horses ends with a two-week stint. Any chance of California Chrome just showing up to take a bow?

NO. 9: GOLF: LPGA BRITISH OPEN

Details/TV: At Southport, England, Thursday-Sunday:

It’s the week before the men play in The Open (they’re heading to Liverpool), and on the same weekend as the U.S. Senior Open takes place in Edmond, Okla. ESPN2 has the final round Sunday starting at 5 a.m.

NO. 10: TENNIS: ATP HALL OF FAME CHAMPIONSHIPS FINAL:

Details/TV: At Newport, R.I., 11 a.m. Sunday, Tennis Channel

A day before the week-long event ends, they’ll honor the latest editions to the sports’ International Hall of Fame — including Lindsay Davenport and famous coach Nick Bollettieri, plus broadcaster Mary Carillo (9:30 a.m. Saturday, Tennis Channel). By the way: This event remains the only pro tournament played on grass in North America.